May We Ever Honor

Fearless

The Era of the World Wars

I am looking forward to "The Era of the World Wars" course this fall. The amount of material to cover in sixteen weeks is daunting, but I think I will try an approach that has proven successful in other courses. I want to do a "year-by-year" series of lectures.  Each year of each war would be covered in depth (with of course, in-depth discussion of the events leading up to each war as well as the aftermath in the following years). As many of our students want to teach History themselves, my goal is to give them material upon which they can build their own lectures and courses. 

Rather than a 20-page research paper, I think I am going to require them to construct a notebook, a collection of chronologically-arranged notes, scholarly articles, pictures and other resources.  At the end of the course, they would something other than a research paper to show for what they had done all semester! In this age of readily available information, the students shouldn't have too much difficulty in getting materials for their project.

Do you all have thoughts or suggestions about this approach?

The Travail of Mary Todd Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the 16th President, was the subject of our class discussion today. This beautiful and intelligent Kentucky belle no doubt brought a spark into the melancholy life of Abraham; yet, her mercurial temper and all-consuming need for attention robbed their marriage (and her position as First Lady) of so much potential.

Each of us in the class searched for sympathy for her: she buried three sons, and the surviving son had her institutionalized in a facility for the insane (which she was clearly was not). She witnessed the assassination of her husband on that fateful night at Ford's Theatre in April of 1865, and she was denied entrance to his bedside at the time of impending death.  To add insult to the injury of a broken heart, a life-time enemy, William Herndon, told  demoralizing stories of Lincoln's affection for Anne Rutledge. Herndon, Lincoln's one-time law-partner, asserted that the President had never really loved Mary, but had accepted his fate with her after the death of Miss Rutledge. Herndon went on the national circuit telling these stories--they were not confined to an intimate group of friends. 

With all of these sad stories, we still had difficulty feeling sorry for Mary. She was her own worst enemy.  I was appalled to read that when Abraham's favorite son Willie died (while they were in the White House), Mary spent large sums of money buying mourning clothes and jewelry!

I had hoped that learning more about her would lead me to see her as someone mistreated and misrepresented by historians, but the evidence overshadows any sympathetic interpretation of her life.

Having said all of this, I am convinced that she loved Abraham deeply and that she cherished her children. She suffered from the reputation-destroying combination of having a difficult personality in very difficult times.
Maybe research yet to be done will reveal a more positive side to Mary Todd Lincoln.

Truth for the Ages

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife 

and they shall be one flesh. "

Man may change his truths, but His truths never change. God created the institution of marriage. His flawless design is comprised of one man and one woman. No other configuration is worthy of the label, "marriage."

Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue

This will be a post that rambles more than usual, and I apologize here at the outset.  There are so many things I want to say about this beautiful flag. This flag represents so many of our beliefs about the relationship between the government and the governed, as well as so much about our History.

 Teaching Constitutional Law these past years, I have been torn by the Texas v. Johnson  case in which the Supreme Court seemed to unhappily support the Constitutionality of burning the flag as a political protest. I hate this case, but understand their view point. Our Country was born because of political protest. Those colors woven in blood and sacrifice represent those rights of freedom of speech and protest.  But if we are to accept and stand by this painful decision as the "Supreme Law of the Land," then why doesn't the law stand by those who choose to wear the flag as a sign of protest? School children wearing American flag clothing to protest Cinco de Mayo in this country were sent home for their efforts. Where are their rights? Why can a disgruntled man protesting a political party burn an American flag in public and hide behind the First Amendment, but school children expressing thier disconent over the presence of illegal aliens are sent home for WEARING the flag? Where is the logic in this? I think  that the lesson is this: Free Speech is only for the left, only for those who denigrate traditional values. Freedom of Religion is now Freedom from Religion. Freedom of speech exists only for those whose speech is "politically correct."

How long will it be before I am not allowed to make these kinds of posts? How long will it be before the thought police come into our classrooms in private colleges and universities and muzzle conservatives like myself? These questions are not rhetorical--they are real concerns.

Is it Time for Class to Start?